Virginia’s Universities Must Reject ‘Ex-Gay’ Junk Science

It would be insane to demand that universities dispense materials that might lead to students having mental health problems or committing suicide. Yet, The Washington Times reports that a Christian legal outfit, Liberty Counsel, is doing just that. They are sending threatening letters to Virginia’s top universities calling on them to

On his way to the de-gaying tent.

carry “ex-gay” literature or face lawsuits.

This legal posturing is in response to an undercover “report” created by “ex-gay” activist Christopher Doyle, who is the founder of Voice of the Voiceless:

“While it appears that the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students are being adequately served” on Virginia campuses, “there exists a population of individuals that are either questioning their sexual orientation and/or have unwanted same-sex attraction that may not be receiving equivalent support,” the report said.

There are seven universities being targeted by these rabidly anti-gay activists: George Mason University, James Madison University, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Old Dominion University, and College of William and Mary.

If any of these universities are foolish enough to take the bait, they are setting themselves up for major lawsuits. The American Psychiatric Association could not be clearer when it says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior.”

A press release headline and sub-headline from the American Psychological Association’s landmark 2009 report on “ex-gay” therapy summarizes the organization’s position: “No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA….Practitioners should avoid telling clients that they can change from gay to straight.”

At the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting, August 10, 2006, the organization released the following statement: “For over three decades the consensus of the mental health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the position’ espoused by NARTH and so-called conversation therapy is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”

If a student at any of these universities harms themselves after reading “ex-gay” brochures, officials at these colleges could be held liable. With such clear and unambiguous warnings from the mental health establishment, there is zero justification to litter the classroom with propaganda that helps “create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” To ignore these stark admonitions is reckless, irresponsible, and a glaring example of negligence.

Yet, Voice of the Voiceless founder, Christopher Doyle, claims that negotiations are ongoing to “make meaningful policy reforms for the 2014-2015 school year.” Doyle and Liberty Counsel’s central argument is that universities must “balance” the viewpoints of mental health and medical experts with the religious opinions of ideological, anti-gay extremists. This would be as absurd as forcing institutions of higher learning to balance African American studies with material from racist organizations or including creationist brochures to counter evolutionary biology lessons.

Furthermore, Doyle wants to distribute materials that include information from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This group has been quite explicit on its advice for adolescents. According to NARTH board member Gerard ven den Aardweg:

“I suggest that as a preferable reaction to young people who disclose their secret feelings something like this: You may indeed feel that interest in your own sex, but it is still a question of immaturity. By nature, you are not that way. Your heterosexual nature has not yet awakened. What we have to discuss is a personality problem, your inferiority complex.”

In what universe is such unscientific, inflammatory rhetoric healthy for the psychosexual development of college youth?

The truth is that the modern “ex-gay” myth is not a real movement. Anti-gay activists in a stealth committee in Colorado Springs conceived of the idea to promote this lie. At a 1997 meeting of Religious Right donors known as The Gathering, anti-gay activist Herb Schlossberg said that “ex-gay” advertising efforts that were soon to be launched in 1998, were designed to “help us in the public relations area.”

University administrators should be aware of what is happening and should not be bullied into participating in the Religious Right’s PR campaign to smear LGBT people. All they have to do is embrace modern science and point out the homophobic nature of the literature championed by “ex-gay” activists, as well as the bizarre techniques that they use. These methods include “touch therapy,” where the student is asked to cuddle with the counselor.

Virginia’s universities are under no obligation to help political organizations peddle harmful anti-gay junk science and hate speech under the auspices of “viewpoint discrimination.”

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

20 Comments

TrevorMay 13, 2014 at 5:32 pm -

This eerily parallels the campaign of “teach the controversy” pushed by creationist and coincidentally most creationist organizations also oppose the normalization of homosexuality.As far as I’m concerned it’s just right wing fundies trying to push their narrow minded view of the world into academia in order to give it some sort of credibility, it’s laughable but at the same time sad because they’re trying to indoctrinate impressionable young people into there beliefs and further prolonging the shelf life of homophobia.

Ben L.May 13, 2014 at 5:34 pm -

Wayne… I’m a VCU alumni. Can you give some guidance on what actions to take? Is there a group that is pushing against this crap?? Should we contact the universities directly?

Laura JorgensenMay 13, 2014 at 5:48 pm -

This may not be a popular opinion, but if the issue is purely one of free speech, then it must be allowed in the academic community. So a student who believes in this garbage should be allowed to share that in area dedicated to free speech. All viewpoints have a right to be heard and I think by the time young people are in college they need to start thinking for themselves.

If on the other hand, the purpose it to require the UNIVERSITY to provide such unscientific and harmful therapy to its students or make referral for such garbage, then the university should be totally free to decline to do so. They are actually obligated to do so. It would be like requiring the university to supply Laetril at the student health services for cancer.

DanielMay 13, 2014 at 5:52 pm -

There is actually scientific proof that these therapies don’t work and are harmful. It’s not a freedom of speech issue.

John PatrickMay 13, 2014 at 6:25 pm -

Is it a free speech issue to give the okay to anti-vaccine believers to put up fliers in college health centers? Or should colleges be required to allow snake oil salesmen to advertise their products as cures for mental illness in mental health clinics? I think not. Neither is it s free speech issue to allow pushers of the antigay version of snake oil therapy to push their product in colleges. Their product is dangerous and harmful. Colleges should not be giving an okay to phony ex-gays to push their make believe therapy on campus.

TrevorMay 14, 2014 at 12:58 am -

Should 2+2=5 be taught in math class in the name of “free speech” or astrology along side astronomy?This isn’t a free speech issue,this is about academia preventing the misinforming of students by recommending them to “therapies” with a proven track record of failure and the said universities being held liable.

RonMay 14, 2014 at 12:44 pm -

Well put, Trevor.

Laura JorgensenMay 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm -

I am not saying the university should teach it or prescribe this “treatment.” If a student wants to get up on a soap box in the quad, and spout this garbage, let him. The other students can then use their free speech to ridicule the speaker. My sense of the people in university these days is most of them think trying to change someone’s sexual orientation is that moronic. From my college days I remember Brother Jed and Sister Cindy who made the rounds “preaching.’ They always drew a crowd of hecklers.

Where would the LGBT community be without free speech. Think back to the days of the Mattachine Society. Sure, they seem tame to us today. But then they were using their free speech, which promoted what was then illegal activity. They ,and all of us who have stood up one way or another, changed society.

Again I am not saying the university has to teach it, promote it, or require it. But it would violate free speech to say the words “pray the gay away”may never be uttered by anyone at anytime in the university setting. I think our community, in all its diversity can handle it.

DanielMay 14, 2014 at 2:58 pm -

This isn’t about preachers or students setting up a soap box. This is about the University being forced to promote false information.

SteveMay 14, 2014 at 10:50 am -

No. Like so many Americans, you don’t understand what free speech means. You can’t just go somewhere and demand that people distribute your stuff.

Such a great article, Wayne! Good for you for standing up for not merely truth but also sanity.

BernieMay 13, 2014 at 7:47 pm -

I cannot any university worth its salt in legitimacy would buy into this nonsense. I don’t see any legal or other reason why any university would feel obligated or otherwise this non-scientific, unscientific, harmful and soul stealing snake oil………….and I actually feel sorry for Mr. Doyle, who seems like a very pathetic person…………..

RonMay 13, 2014 at 8:54 pm -

What is Doyle’s day job? In other words, exactly WHO is bankrolling this loon?

Paul DouglasMay 13, 2014 at 10:26 pm -

You don’t think this guy actually works for a living do you?
He’s a parasite. Got a gig and gonna milk it.

CJMay 15, 2014 at 11:07 am -

Chris Doyle’s day job is pretty obvious. He plays Uncle Fester in the latest off-Broadway production of The Adams Family, The Musical. :D

iDavidMay 13, 2014 at 11:24 pm -

If a lawsuit comes forth, it would be dismissed as frivolous most likely, or, a University could run it up a flag pole to set a precedent, which could actually be a positive move for placing laws in multiple states criminalizing ex-gay therapy.

Michael CMay 14, 2014 at 10:02 am -

The Mormon Church recently conducted a survey of members concerning their experiences with “ex-gay” therapy. Warren Throckmorton has a few details.

Regan DuCasseMay 14, 2014 at 12:43 pm -

No educational institution should be forced to have unsound, proven harmful information on it’s campus.
Said institutions are obligated to teach history and it’s context. But they are NOT obligated to teach anything outmoded, that no longer applies or that further exploration, research and experimentation has proven WRONG.

No person would consider a teaching environment credible if they stopped all of their informational tracking at 1925.

And insisted to only teach what people knew at that time and not since.
Such as in the case of insisting that the Bible is a gold standard on medical, psychiatric, technological and social justice issues that should be obeyed and believed by everyone.
The very people insisting on this, at no time are required by law to live accordingly.
So demanding this only of certain segments of vulnerable people do so, is something that RECENT history has shown to be dangerous folly.
And avoided by rational people.
Fortunately and hopefully, the rational are overshadowing the irrational and telling them to pound sand.
C. Doyle can whine and b***h it’s his ‘right’ to express contradictory and hypocritical information, but he ain’t right in the head himself.

Wayne BesenMay 14, 2014 at 5:57 pm -

Chris Doyle is a liar and a fraud. The state of Virginia should strip his license and force him to pay back the clients that he has presumably ripped off by selling them snake oil.

NancyPMay 14, 2014 at 8:05 pm -

The universities are not obligated to carry any specific “literature”. If the “literature” mentioned by Doyle is a general-interest pamphlet, it is not the type of material customarily handled by university libraries. If the “literature” mentioned by Doyle is a non-peer-reviewed journal, university libraries are not going to waste scarce money on obscure low-ranked journals. If the literature is a “counseling pamphlet”, patient education materials, the choice of such materials is up to the professional providing services (M.D., M.S.W., licensed clinical psychologist Ph.D., etc).

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Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights the "ex-gay" myth and antigay religious extremism.

TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes wrongdoing. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for truth, integrity, and equality for sexual minorities.